Moving your date/time in your entry box

[keristars]

I've had a couple questions about how I changed my layout to add the date to each entry above the subject box, along with the time. One was fairly recent, and since I'm planning to overhaul my layout anyway, (I do everything on the main layer and realized that's rather stupid) I figured I'd dig it out and share with everyone else. BTW, I have had

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[keristars]

Ack, I'm sorry it's taken me a while to reply! I forgot to turn my Google Talk on, so I wasn't getting email notifications, so I didn't check my email.

Anyway, what I was doing with this post was showing you how to edit the layers. I had someone ask me about this a month or two ago, and when I went to GJ to try and see how it worked, I couldn't figure out how the layers are done over there. Can you create theme layers to use? I'd assume so, but I just don't know.

That's pretty much what this requires, though. You have to create a new theme layer, copy and paste from the layout source code for specific sections, then edit those sections. One of the things about using this on GJ is that I think the variables will be different, too.

So, here's what's going on:

With the S2 system, you get layers of code, kind of like with stylesheets. Each subsequent layer overrides the earlier one, or modifies it. So if you are using custom CSS at the customise page, you're creating a new layer of CSS which takes precedence over the default one - maybe you're adding new rules, maybe you're changing old rules, or maybe you're not doing anything at all to a rule, so the default is used.

The first S2 layer is the Layout layer. This is where all the intricate code is that sets everything up for the Customisation Wizard, or tells the page how to find a linkslist, or where to get the journal entry, and then there's also the code for the default appearance. If you're using a core layout - provided by GJ/LJ/etc, then you cannot edit this layer.

The second layer is the Theme layer. This one builds on the layout layer, so it doesn't have to have all the nitty gritty bits. They're already there. So you can use it to define new sections for the page, or reorganize it, or tell it to display things differently. What you cannot do is change the way the Customisation Wizard looks or (re)define certain variables and functions. You can use theme layers to make lots of changes to a layout without affecting the core code. (And, honestly, one of my bad habits is to change the Layout layer instead of the theme layer, because I'm lazy about copy/pasting to do it properly.)

The third layer is the User layer. This, again, builds on the layout and theme layers, but there's a lot less you can do with it. Its primary function is to give values to variables, such as colors, font sizes, column positioning, and so on - when you use the Customisation Wizard, you're creating/editing the User layer, but you can also do so directly.

(cont'd)